Staff to review emergency management bylaw
Parnell calls councillors ‘lame ducks’ without decision-making power
Councillors voted unanimously Monday to have city staff review Peterborough’s emergency management bylaw, now that it has served in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The bylaw could need adjustment now that it has been tested in a pandemic, said Coun. Dean Pappas, who suggested the review.
“Maybe there’s a better way, and we’ve learned some lessons from this emergency,” he said. The emergency management bylaw was last reviewed in December 2018. Pappas said the city couldn’t have predicted a pandemic at the time.
The bylaw helps the city’s emergency management group, which includes Mayor Diane Therrien and city staff, to promptly adjust services in an emergency such as a pandemic.
That has meant city council has delegated its authority to staff to make changes to the transit system and to the downtown pedestrian areas, said Coun. Lesley Parnell, leaving councillors as “lame ducks” with no decision-making power.
“This has been a real wake-up call. When city council approves a recommendation by the mayor for an emergency, we basically take ourselves out of the picture,” she said.
Major change happens in the city with no say from councillors and no public consultation, she said — and when citizens get upset, councillors “take the heat,” even though they had no say in the decisions.
Coun. Stephen Wright said those emergency management measures sometimes leave councillors out of the conversation.
“Every day we strike new policy,” he said.
A report is due back to councillors in the second half of 2021.
Also on councillors’ agenda on Monday:
Recycling
Councillors heard there are now fewer missed pickups of blue boxes with Emterra Environmental, the new contractor that started Nov. 1, than there had been with previous contractor Waste Connections — even though entire routes were missed when Emterra first began its new contract in fall.
A new city staff report also suggests that the delays weren’t always Emterra’s fault — that sometimes there were missed collections because residents had set out their blue boxes late, having not realized the pickup time had changed under the new contractor.
On Nov. 1, Emterra took over from Waste Connections on a seven-year contract to collect blue boxes in Peterborough — and in the early weeks, there were many delayed collections.
The city advised that problems would continue until Nov. 25, citing issues with Emterra’s vehicles.
But at the end of November, council directed staff to write a report explaining why Emterra was so often late, in those early weeks — and on Monday, councillors reviewed that report.
The report states that in November, there were 1,306 missed collections across the city and 42 days where the routes were not completed.
But now missed collections are fewer than they were with the previous contractor, James Istchenko, manager of environmental services for the city, said Monday.
Coun. Pappas asked how much recyclable material ended up in the landfill site during those first few months when collections were missed, but Istchenko couldn’t say exactly.
Istchenko also said his peers in other communities have had similar experiences whenever new contractors are hired.